STUDENTEREKSAMEN ENGELSK A-NIVEAU

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Side 2 af 11 sider TEXT1 Peter Carty Yellow "Welcome to Egypt! Welcome to Egypt!" A deluge of Egyptian porters was trying to wrench Jon's bags away, angling for baksheesh. He shook hands with each one and handed out crumpled currency. Then he locked the door of his room against them, and tucked into his duty-free. 5 The next day he walked along the promenade, impervious to the blue plain of the Red Sea. He reported to the diving school, a new construction of glass, marble and concrete. It contained a deep training pool with an elaborate tiled frieze of a scuba diver on its bottom. Jon's instructor was an Italian called Berto who wore wrap-around sunglasses which remained motionless when he spoke. He had a high-pitched yipping laugh. 10 Berto gave Jon a form to sign which indemnified the school from damages in the event of his death or injury and certified that he did not suffer from a long list of medical conditions. What the fuck was he getting himself into this time? Jon worked his way down the boxes, inserting "No" in each one. He was overweight but in good physical condition for someone pushing forty, a second-string writer on a London 15 listings magazine. There was only one other student in Berto's group, a retired brewer called Brian. Jon rapidly established that beyond a certain familiarity with various alcoholic beverages the amount he had in common with Brian was nil, all conversational overtures led nowhere. But he envied Brian his calm, the methodical way he assembled and clambered into the 20 gear. As Berto lectured them on each item's function, Jon tried to concentrate. It was very important not to fuck up - a simple error could be disastrous. He tried to decide what the most crucial items of information were. This was all hard work. Was there any dutyfree left in his room? Only another couple of hours to go, and he'd have a nice full glass 25 in one hand and the TV remote in the other. Berto's voice broke into his reverie. He was impressing on them the importance of continuous breathing underwater. "At ten metres down you are breathing in air under a lot of pressure, double surface pressure. If you hold your breath when you come up, the air can expand too much for -« your lungs to contain it." Jon listened with horror. So you were loaded down with all this ironmongery - there was even a belt with metal weights on it - and if there was an accident you were meant to take deep breaths as you lunged for the surface?
Berto did not seem to register his disquiet, and started detailing the exercises they 35 would go through in the training pool. "One of the first things we'll do is clear the mask. To do this you tilt your head up and blow out through your nose." [...] Jon dragged air in, pushed the bottom of the mask out, and rammed it back as water flooded in. He held on to the top of the mask and tilted his bead back, blowing out. His 40 nose filled. Water was spurting down into his lungs and it was unendurable, he was drowning. He shot up and erupted from the surface, gasping. Berto made him go through it a second time, with the same result. Eventually Jon got the hang of it: it seemed that each time his head was right back he'd breathed in slightly through his nose. Back on the surface Berto addressed him. 45 "You are nervous under the water?" "And above the water." "Yip yip, yip, yip." Jon slunk off back to the hotel, avoiding Berto's and Brian's gaze, sliding into the duty-free shop for another bottle of gin before locking himself in his room. The editor 50 had forced him to come out here on this freebie learn-to-scuba-dive trip. The travel and sports editors had instantly refused and no one else would do it (it meant no lunching in Soho for almost a week), but the tour operator was a big advertiser with the magazine. Jon hated anything active or sporty, yet here he was. They hadn't paid for his girlfriend to come, either. Mind you, the way things were going that was probably a plus. The 55 silences between them had multiplied, then lengthened into an empty continuum. He poured more gin, but no matter how much he swallowed it was never enough. Next morning he retched down the lavatory, skipped the buffet in the hotel restaurant. He spoke aloud to himself. "The condemned man didn't eat a hearty breakfast." 6o He forced himself to set off for the diving school and tried to ignore an inner voice. "You're yellow, yellow, yellow, yellow." He walked as slowly as he dared, but arrived almost immediately. They'd completed all the training-pool exercises, so today it was time to take the boat out into the bay for a practice dive in the sea. [...] Berto briefed them before the dive. 65 "We're only going down ten metres the first time." Full fathom five. "Just before ascending I want you, Brian, to give Jon your spare mouthpiece to breathe from. Jon, be ready to take out your mouth-piece, insert Brian's spare and come up to the surface with him." TO Take out the air supply that far down and fuck about with another one? He couldn't do it, but he would have to. [...] Jon was not all right. He'd heard that drowning was a quick death: your lungs filled and that was more or less it, bit of thrashing about, not a bad way to go. But he sucked and sucked on the mouthpiece, trying to get as much air as possible into his lungs. The
Page 1 and 2: STUDENTEREKSAMEN Vejledende opgaves
Page 3 and 4: Side 2 af 2 sider 4. You should hav
Page 5: Essayopgave Assignment: Side 1 af 1
Page 9 and 10: Side 5 af 11 sider At least if he k
Page 11 and 12: TEXT 3 Sir Edmund Hillary 50 Years
Page 13 and 14: TEXT 5 TEXT 6 Langston Hughes Suici
Page 15: Anvendt materiale (til brug for Cop

STUDENTEREKSAMEN ENGELSK A-NIVEAU

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?